New York Times announces new ‘gender editor’

The New York Times has created a “gender editor” position, naming former Newsweek editor Jessica Bennett to the new role.

“Jessica is the author of Feminist Fight Club, an illustrated battle manual for fighting sexism at work, and a coveted campus and corporate speaker on gender, identity and digital culture,” reads a Tuesday press release from the Times.

“At Newsweek, she coauthored a cover story about the women who had sued the magazine for discrimination in 1970, and as executive editor of Tumblr, she helped oversee the first live-GIFed presidential debate. She also once interned for the late Trump biographer Wayne Barrett,” the announcement continues.

{mosads}

The paper adds that Bennett will lead “a multi-pronged initiative to deepen the engagement of female readers around the world.” 

Bennett said in a Teen Vogue story published Tuesday that she believes that gender issues and the content surrounding them “needs to exist throughout every section of the paper.”

“To me, what gender issues means is not simply coverage of feminism or issues related to women’s rights. Though of course that is important, and we’re committed to approaching those issues and approaching them from an intersectional lens. But I think for a place like the Times, this type of content needs to exist throughout every section of the paper,” Bennett writes. 

“So whether that means stories about gender identity, or sexuality, or masculinity, or race and class and how that plays into gender identity, or simply the subjects that the Times already covers — politics, international affairs, science, health. But approaching these subjects through a lens of gender.”

Bennett’s start date at the Times will be Oct. 30.